Angelica Deverell lives above her mother's grocery shop in a dreary turn-of-the-20th century English neighborhood, but spends her days dreaming of Paradise House, where her aunt works as a maid, in this 1957 novel by Elizabeth Taylor. In Angel's imagination, she is the mistress of the house. When she begins to write popular novels, this fantasy becomes her life; now that she has tasted success, Angel has no intention of letting anyone stand in her way—except, perhaps, herself. The Booker Prize–winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies provides an introduction to Taylor, a writer admired by Barbara Pym and Kingsley Amis.

"Always intelligent, often subversive and never dull, Elizabeth Taylor is the thinking person’s dangerous housewife. Her sophisticated prose combines elegance, icy wit and freshness in a stimulating cocktail—the perfect toast to the quiet horror of domestic life."—Valerie Martin